ASK MICAH "The Eternal Cycle of the Cougar"

Dear Micah,

               I have a friend who will only date people in their twenties. My friend is 37. All of our friends have real and meaningful relationships while she suffers through dramas that don't stop and  break-ups at every turn. We can't even get together with her without the entire conversation being about her latest problem with her newest young boyfriend. We're all starting families and marriages and don't have alot in common anymore with her. We're thinking of phasing her out of the group. What are your thoughts? A girlfriend in our circle reads you all the time and said she bet you'd have something funny to say about it.

The Cougar's friend

Dear Friend,

               I don't know how funny it will be, but I do have an opinion. I am assuming that your friend, the Cougar, has been a friend for a long time. If not, then toss her to the winds and who gives a damn? But if she has been in your life a while, I think that you owe her a private, serious chat. Sit her down and explain to her that you are genuinely concerned with the choices she is making. Phrase it all in a manner that illustrates your concern for her future. Tell her that you wish for her to have a deep meaningful connection to someone and you don't feel she is getting that in her current situation with the young men she's dating. Then segue into how it has been affecting her position in the circle of friends. Tell her that many of you girls are beginning to want to exclude her from gatherings because of the constant drama she brings in regards to these relationships. Try to explain to her that all of this drama is silly and juvenile and you all experienced it already when you were in your own early twenties. It was normal then. Everyone goes through it, but you have to go THROUGH it, not sit down and remain in it. Your friend's state of consciousness should have matured and morphed into a smarter, more settled woman-- but she hasn't yet. By choosing to date only younger men, she is going to remain in a constant state of flux and chaos. Men in their twenties are sowing their oats and moving from relationship to relationship trying to discover what it is that they are looking for out of life. Eventually they find it and become the reliable husbands and boyfriends of women like you in your thirties. These men will never be a steady force in the Cougar's life because the time with the Cougar is one of the experiences they must go through on their course to self awareness--and again, they will GO THROUGH her and move one to someone else. So your friend is destined to be swept away by, then dumped by, a younger man unless she matures her sights a little. The saddest part of her path, if she doesn't change it, is that very soon she will not be able to attract twentysomethings as easily. She'll be in her forties and the game may change drastically for her. She may be thinking that when that happens she'll move up to the men in their thirties--but that isn't going to work either. The men in their thirties have already found women their own age to commit to, or they'll be looking for women in their twenties.   So your friend in her forties will have to date men in their forties. The problem with men in their forties is that many of them will be divorced and turning their eyes toward women in their twenties who can give them one last hurrah before they enter their fifties. Basically what I am trying to illustrate is that if your friend doesn't grow up right now and find a proper relationship, she will decrease her chances of ever having one by a huge amount.   Maybe that's all right for her. She may not want a husband and children, and there is nothing wrong with that; But if she does desire a husband and a family one day then she'd better quit fooling around with kids and grab a man before they're all taken. 

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